Elphelt Valentine
Elphelt Valentine is a major character in the Guilty Gear series. She is one of the Valentines created by the Universal Will, the other being her older sister Ramlethal. She first appeared as a downloadable playable character in Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN-, and is majorly involved in its Story Mode. She returned in the following entries as a non-DLC character with a major redesign. Design In ''-SIGN-'', Elphelt has pink hair, green eyes, and wears a primarily white dress resembling a wedding dress, accented with red belts and pink ribbons with clover symbols. Her most notable features are the bouquet of large red roses she carries with around, and her revealing bust window. Elphelt received a new redesign, arguably the biggest alteration to any character between entries: Her colors, except for her eyes and smaller details across her outfit are now completely grayscale (with her pink hair changed into light grey, and the red belts on her design in black). She now wears large spiked belts across her neck and wrists, and her dress is given a darker, more gothic motif, along with being open in the front, exposing more of her legs and cleavage. The roses strapped to her waist are now in a black bouquet, the pink clover on her head accessory is changed to mint, and the pupils in her eyes are smaller. Personality Unlike her predecessors Valentine and Ramlethal, Elphelt is bursting with personality. She is capable of feeling emotions as any other human would in order to accommodate to her purpose: to infiltrate human society. Elphelt is a kind-hearted lover of nature and animals, she never ignores those who are lonely. She always tries to exemplify the pinnacle of femininity, only to fail repeatedly. She is very optimistic and stubborn, to the point where it is very difficult to dampen her mood or change her mind. Elphelt is also obsessed with making up for her interrupted marriage by finding a suitable husband by any means necessary. However, the emotions she was allows to have would ultimately backfire as she ended up morally discerning the vile nature of her mission and refuses to follow through on her orders. Story Background Elphelt Valentine was the third and presumably last Valentine created by the Merciless Apocalypse. During her creation, her "Mother" implanted several subroutine programs within her subconscious without her knowledge. Shortly after she was born, she was left completely ignorant of her nature as a Valentine and led a relatively normal life. She eventually became the fiancee of a Death Metal singer until the day of their wedding, when her programming reactivated and her memories returned. The details are unclear as to what happened, but Elphelt then set out to "rebel" against her mother's orders and raided the Frasco II laboratory, where she acquired various magi-tech weapons from the top-secret Cyrus Project. Afterwards, she used her ability to locate Prime Gear Cells to keep an eye on Sol Badguy, but she found Ky Kiske instead. She told him what would happen with her sister Ramlethal, but for security reasons, she was sealed at the Illyrian Special Quarters, the Royal Fleet One. Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN-'' Once her predictions come to pass, Ky releases Elphelt and she agrees to stop Ramlethal, telling him that they both possess the same control restraints. In the final chapters of Story Mode, once she exceeds her fighting limit, as Dr. Paradigm warned her not to engage in combat while defending the Illyria castle, it is revealed her true goal is originally concealed from her own mind and doesn't activate until after Justice's awakening, so that she could get close to Sol, Ky, and other major threats to "Mother". Before she succeeds in self-destruction, she is stopped by her sister Ramlethal thanks to her acceptance of the concept of emotion. She is then brought back to the Backyard. ''Guilty Gear Xrd -REVELATOR-'' Elphelt is discovered to be locked up in the Backyard by Ariels, who plans to fuse her with Justice in order to bring about the end of humanity and with it, its redundancies; she is a pivotal character in the story, as a main objective of the Kings of Illyria, once they learn about Ariels' plan, is to rescue Elphelt to prevent Justice's resurrection. Elphelt learns quickly just how dastardly Ariels, who reveals herself to be the former's mother, really is, through her desire to use her daughter to end the world and start anew, as well as having no disregard for Elphelt's sister, Ramlethal. Later on in the story, Elphelt, still restrained to a dormant Justice by her arms and legs, begs Ariels not to proceed with her plan. Ariels explains her process through a series of hysterical metaphors before summoning Phalanx Nine, along with a Gear and what appears to be a child version of herself. When the coalition led by Leo picks up on Elphelt's signal and sends Sin, Ramlethal and a handful of soldiers to find her, Ariels responds by sending the Gear, child and Phalanx to stop them; everyone involved escapes except Ramlethal, who gets caught in the Gear's massive explosion and is seemingly annihilated, much to Elphelt's horror. Jack-O' eventually reveals the plan that That Man wants to set in motion, which involves her effectively replacing Elphelt as the one to fuse with Justice. Ariels leaves Elphelt in the Backyard while she attends the Celebration of Victory, where she is forced by Leo and Ky's arrival to reveal herself as the Universal Will in front of the public. Ariels's return is when Sol and the Kings of Illyria locate her and, with her, Elphelt. Sol greets Elphelt from Johnny's plane by promising dinner, bringing Elphelt to tears, but her happiness is interrupted when the plane gets shot down; however, the entire group survives and is ready to confront the Sanctus Maximus. Jack-O moves to free Elphelt while Ariels is distracted by a final battle with Sol, Ky and Sin. When the battle goes south, Ramlethal arrives with Raven, having received a portion of his immortality, and the Kingdoms' artillery blasts Ariels, incapacitating her and freeing Elphelt from Justice. Elphelt is returned to the Kingdoms' fleet just in time before the armada opens fire on Justice, while Ariels makes one final request for Sol to take care of Elphelt and Ramlethal. ''Guilty Gear Xrd REV 2 Abilities Elphelt's playing style is remarkably different to other character in that, instead of a single melee-type of weapon, she uses a wide range of weapons to deal damage. She primarily uses long-range rifles and shotguns, with her main weapon being the Ms. Confille. From a distance, she is able to snipe and 'potshot' opponents, while being able to aim and reload quickly. Elphelt also makes use of a pistol, fruit-shaped grenades, a cannon, and champagne—most of which are concealed inside her rose bouquet. This bouquet, and individual flowers, also function as melee weapons, along with a hidden cake-cutting blade. Additionally, Elphelt has a latent power that allows her to know and teleport to the location of any individual with Prime Gear Cells. Musical themes * Marionette - Guilty Gear Xrd Quotes Allusions * Elphelt's floral motif and use of ranged weaponry seems to draw inspiration from the American hard rock band Guns N' Roses. Her ''-REVELATOR-'' attire resembles Stephanie Seymour's wedding dress in the band's "November Rain" music video. * Elphelt's use of artillery may also be a nod to the American concept of a shotgun wedding, wherein one party (usually the groom) is forced to wed another. *Her wedding themes may also likely draw inspiration from the song "White Wedding" by Billy Idol. * Her Instant Kill is a possible allusion to Bon Jovi's "You Give Love a Bad Name". * Elphelt's eyes having a diamond-like color to them could be a possible allusion to the album Diamond Eyes by Deftones. * Her victory quote "Feelin' lucky, punk? 'Cause I sure do!" is likely a reference to the famous, but often misquoted line from the film ''Dirty Harry''. Trivia * Elphelt shares her birthday with Dizzy and Axl Low, coincidentally two other characters who share inspiration from Guns N' Roses. * Elphelt and Noel Vermillion from the BlazBlue series are both gunslingers who share a dislike of bugs and insects. Coincidentally, they also share the same birthday. They are also artificial beings who bear a physical resemblance to the loved ones of the main protagonists. Additionally, they take on their alternate/true forms when they are forced to fight against the main protagonist. * Elphelt's fighting style is quite similar to Bulleta/B.B. Hood from the Darkstalkers series, who also favors concealed weaponry and unsuspecting outward appearance. * May apparently cannot pronounce Elphelt's name correctly, as heard when using May as an System Voice in the Xrd games. * In Dead or Alive 5: Last Round, Honoka Honoka received a downloadable costume based on Elphelt as part of the Arc System Works Mashup Set. * Elphelt, along with Sol, Ky and Dizzy, appears as a playable character in Star Ocean: Anamnesis. Gallery Elfeldt.png|First appearance. Elphelt_GGXRD_artwork.png|Elphelt's artwork in ''-SIGN-''. Elphelt img01.png|''Guilty Gear Xrd'' x Chain Chronicle artwork. ElpheltStarOcean.png|''Guilty Gear Xrd'' x Star Ocean artwork. Navigation Category:Guilty Gear Xrd characters Category:Playable characters Category:Females Category:Heroes